I think the sense of hopelessness is an affliction. It is not really part of the teaching. I am sure it is something we all experience from time of time but I don't see why it should be associated with Buddhism in particular.

Learn to do good, refrain from evil, purify the mind ~ this is the teaching of the Buddhas

But I think it is very hopeful because Buddhism shows the path to freedom from afflictions.

If there were nothing to be done, that would be depressing.

In order to ensure my mind never comes under the power of the self-cherishing attitude,I must obtain control over my own mind. Therefore, amongst all empowerments, the empowerment that gives me control over my mind is the best,and I have received the most profound empowerment with this teaching.-Atisha Dipamkarabrtsal ba'i bkhra drin

JKhedrup wrote:But I think it is very hopeful because Buddhism shows the path to freedom from afflictions.

If there were nothing to be done, that would be depressing.

this is true at a macro level and could be said of many religions, i.e., accept the lord Jesus as your savior and enter the kingdom of heaven forever and ever - doesn't get more hopeful than that.

The hard work and depression comes at the individual level. I just finished reading and watching some stuff on the life of Milarepa. The questions he faced and what he experienced before meeting Marpa and then again before Marpa finally gave him the teachings make most people's concept of depression seem like a summer vacation. It basically comes down to "the path to freedom is for other people, not for me. I can never escape my evil karma". Or "I will never be able to receive the teachings and if I do, I will never understand or make progress."

Milarepa's story is interesting and relevant to this thread on many levels, the least of which is how much hard work and devotion it takes to achieve enlightenment and what that path looks like. We each have to journey for ourselves, but Milarepa's life can be a measuring stick of sorts for us to gauge how far we've come or where we are at. It's easy to look at Mr. Williams and talk about fingers and moons and pat ourselves on the back for our understanding, but I for one prefer to look to Milarepa and hope to even progress as far on the path as to be worthy of a teacher such as Marpa and to have the strength to endure the teachings fully.

the dhamma allows us to be free from the suffering caused by our attachments/clinging to concepts and ideas [even so-called buddhist concepts] of the self. if we choose to hold on to an idea of a self that has been born and will eventually die, then we must hold on to all the baggage that comes along with it, the fear of a "lower rebirth" being just one of the suitcases.

stop biting the buddhas fingers with intellect, attaching our "self" to the minds many currents/formations, calling it swimming/practice, while never experiencing the mind/ocean/moon itself!

the only thing standing in the way of ourselves and enlightenment is our... self!!!

"True seeing is called transcendence;False seeing is worldliness:Set aside both right and wrong,And the nature of enlightenment is clear."

Feathers wrote:Uan, could you link any of the things you have been reading/watching on Milarepa?

I was watching the documentary Yogis of Tibet and ran across this 3 parter on Milarepa. I'm not usually moved by these kind of things, and I already knew the life story of Milarepa, but for some reason, this had a profound impact on me.

Milarepa's Initial RealizationsI have understood this body of mine to be the product of ignorance, composed of flesh and blood and lit up by the perceptive power of consciousness. To those fortunate ones who long for emancipation it may be the great vessel by which they may procure Freedom. But to the unfortunates who only sin, it may be the guide to lower and miserable states of existence. This our life is the boundary mark whence one may take an upward or downward path. Our present time is a most precious time, wherein each of us must decide, in one way or other, for lasting good or lasting ill.

One who aims only at his own individual peace and happiness adopts the lower path (Hinayana), but he who devotes the merits of his love and compassion to the cause of others belongs to the higher path (Mahayana).

In meditating on the Final Goal, one has to discover the non-existence of the personal Ego, and therefore the fallacy that it exists (i.e. because everything in the universe with name and form is basically illusory in nature)

To realize the state of non-existence of the personal ego, the mind must be kept in quiescence. In that state, thoughts, ideas, and cognition cease and the mind (awareness) passes into a state of perfect tranquility so that days, months, and years may pass without the person perceiving it; thus the passage of time has to be marked for him by others.

The visions of the forms of the Deities which appear in meditation are merely signs attending the perseverance in meditation. They have no intrinsic worth or value in themselves.

All the efforts put forth during this path must be made in a spirit of compassion with the aim of dedicating the merit of one's efforts to the Universal Good. There is a need of mentally praying and wishing for blessings on others so earnestly that one's mind processes also transcend thought.

Just as the mere name of food does not satisfy the appetite of a hungry person but he must eat food, so also a man who would learn about the Voidness (i.e. Universal Awareness) must meditate so as to realize it, not just learn of its definition.

The last paragraph is very interesting. When people talk about the finger pointing towards the moon and that we shouldn't mistake the finger for the moon, what often happens is that is exactly what we are doing when we use that phrase. We know "Voidness" is the finger and not the moon. But we often think the definition of "Voidness" (or Emptiness, or no-self, or karma, or ego clinging, etc.) is the moon. But the definitions themselves are still the fingers. Understanding the definition is still just the finger pointing to the moon. The moon is still just a finger. Inherent in the language is that there is a moon or "thing" out there. But it's inside each of us. And it's not a thing or an it. As Milarepa points out, "it" is a realization and it's beyond words.

Here's a powerful excerpt of Drubwang Konchok Norbu Rinpoche talking about "it" from the film Yogis of Tibet http://youtu.be/kqSExkgZ6tw . Watching him is still "a finger pointing toward the moon" but it's a very instructive finger.

jeeprs wrote:I think the sense of hopelessness is an affliction. It is not really part of the teaching. I am sure it is something we all experience from time of time but I don't see why it should be associated with Buddhism in particular.

Most religions say that if you're a good person, follow a moral life, and perform your religious obligations (including having faith), you get to go to heaven.It's only Buddhism that seems to say "yeah, that's just more suffering too, in fact it'll ultimately lead to hell".Like Williams demonstrates, there becomes this mentality of "okay, if I don't get enlightened in the next X number of years, I'm going to hell or I'm just going to get erased."This leads to hopelessness, especially when coupled with all the talk of renunciation & severing "love attachment".

I think the true message is a little different.You go to hell if you're still overcome by ignorance, attachment, and aversion (delusion, craving, and hatred) - because it doesn't matter where you are, being ruled by those 3 dictate that you won't be happy, or it will be short lived and you'll earn yourself more misery in the long run. In other words, where you go doesn't matter so much as making sure that your tendencies are such that you can appreciate it when you get there - but everything's transitory.

Of course there are different levels to it - believing this world operates exactly the way most people think it does doesn't seem to be as bad as thinking everyone wants to kill you, craving for existence doesn't seem to be as bad as craving for nonexistence, and aversion to alcohol doesn't seem to be on the same level as hating your parents such that you want to kill them.The example of the Buddha shows that the illusory identity you build for yourself doesn't completely go away, that it's one of the 3 Knowledges that you get when you've reached the goal.You don't cease to exist, just change, in much the same way that you're not the same kid that you were in kindergarten - though you may (temporarily?) lose all the memories associated with that identity.

I know everyone criticizes "feel good" Buddhism, but it serves an important function.Tantra aside, Buddhism's a long game - from stream entry it can take 7 lifetimes to reach Arahat status and that's one of the short ones.There could probably be even more done to get "average Joes" like Williams on the path & keep them on the path.Do you really think that the Buddha was just milking Anathapindika?Or that his favorable prognosis for his householder followers (even those who had no attainments) was really just lies to keep the money coming?The point is progress... baby steps... as long as you're moving in the right direction and working hard at it, results conducive to that direction will come.

Maybe Williams is too attached to his identity to stick with Buddhism, maybe he really needs a creator God, or maybe just another results-oriented American.It would just be nice to see other options presented in the west for folks that aren't confident that they're going to have high levels of attainments.I guess if the west is reluctant to jump on a more householder-based form like Pure Land, than the Dalai Lama's attempts at getting people of other religions to use Buddhism to improve their quality of life is at least a step in the right direction.

"All memories and thoughts are the union of emptiness and knowing, the Mind.Without attachment, self-liberating, like a snake in a knot.Through the qualities of meditating in that way,Mental obscurations are purified and the dharmakaya is attained."

Pokrchop wrote:Buddhism's a long game - from stream entry it can take 7 lifetimes to reach Arahat status and that's one of the short ones.

Paul Williams wrote: What will become of me?

I began to see that if Buddhism were correct then unless I attained enlightenment (nirvana) or something like it in this life, where the whole cycle of rebirth would finally come to a complete end, I would have no hope.

There seems a common thread here. 'I' will go along for some time, and then 'I' will 'go to heaven' or 'undergo seven more rebirths' or 'escape the wheel of samsara'. But isn't that whole understanding that the 'anatman' - the 'no I' - criticism is aimed at undermining in the first place? Aren't we forgetting the very basic fact, that there really is no 'I' that persists through time and then goes to this or that state? Maybe the very thing that binds us to this wheel is the sense that we are someone who has to be freed from it. (I am no excerption to that, I am not saying this is something that I realize that others don't.) I think it is important to grasp the notion that in an important sense, enlightenment is present right now. No, this doesn't mean 'I am enlightened', in fact, that statement is self-contradictory - where there is enlightenment, there is no 'I'. I think we have this notion of what 'enightenment' must be, like a pot of gold at the end of the mythological rainbow, and we are slogging our way there. But where are we meanwhile? RIght now, in fact? That, I think, is the question.

Learn to do good, refrain from evil, purify the mind ~ this is the teaching of the Buddhas

Pokrchop wrote:Buddhism's a long game - from stream entry it can take 7 lifetimes to reach Arahat status and that's one of the short ones.

Paul Williams wrote: What will become of me?

I began to see that if Buddhism were correct then unless I attained enlightenment (nirvana) or something like it in this life, where the whole cycle of rebirth would finally come to a complete end, I would have no hope.

There seems a common thread here. 'I' will go along for some time, and then 'I' will 'go to heaven' or 'undergo seven more rebirths' or 'escape the wheel of samsara'. But isn't that whole understanding that the 'anatman' - the 'no I' - criticism is aimed at undermining in the first place? Aren't we forgetting the very basic fact, that there really is no 'I' that persists through time and then goes to this or that state? Maybe the very thing that binds us to this wheel is the sense that we are someone who has to be freed from it. (I am no excerption to that, I am not saying this is something that I realize that others don't.) I think it is important to grasp the notion that in an important sense, enlightenment is present right now. No, this doesn't mean 'I am enlightened', in fact, that statement is self-contradictory - where there is enlightenment, there is no 'I'. I think we have this notion of what 'enightenment' must be, like a pot of gold at the end of the mythological rainbow, and we are slogging our way there. But where are we meanwhile? RIght now, in fact? That, I think, is the question.

To loosely quote Peter Harvey, there is no separate, static Self, but there is a conventional/empirical self that changes moment to moment. To say otherwise would pretty nihilistic I think.True, you do want to drop grasping at existence, whether you're grasping at a self in the 5 skandhas or something external.You do want to get beyond the conceit "I am".But the one that experiences the fruits of karma from one lifetime to the next is neither the exact same, nor completely different.To say they don't exist at all falls into nihilism.

Hope is an intense form of suffering that keeps you from appreciating the current moment and makes you look for something better. The whole point of the path is to drop all fictional narratives whatsoever. Including the one about you not being enlightened. How is that not as positive a message as can be imagined?

Karma Dorje wrote:Hope is an intense form of suffering that keeps you from appreciating the current moment and makes you look for something better. The whole point of the path is to drop all fictional narratives whatsoever. Including the one about you not being enlightened. How is that not as positive a message as can be imagined?

Nice call. "Hope" is probably a poor choice of words."Positive outlook on life" is probably better.Appreciating the current moment, being content with it, not just seeing it as suffering - that's a beautiful thing, and a lesson that's too often forgotten.

William's statements about particular issues may be more superficial to what is really going on with him. I think the posts concerned with his suffering are more to the point. I'd like to post a quote in the above article quoted from his book ...

'The final goal is essentially communal, for the Christian vision of history is as a love-song, the love between God and his people.'

I know you can leave a religion without going into a state of Organ Rejection. I myself ceased to believe in a God and therefore Christianity during my catechism class is taught by my Lutheran pastor. When I pointed out that according to his explanation all the people who lived in the Americas after Jesus came to earth and up to the time the Spanish landed were Condemned to go to hell he said simply, “I can't answer your question, I wrestle with that.” That was his honest if unsatisfactory answer too much that I asked. What makes my case unusual I guess is that I always had a great respect for him as a man and his integrity as a person who believed in his kind of spirituality. His wife and he were upright people and they were consistent between what they said and did. Because he was serious about his theology he was fired by our congregation who brought in a boisterous fellow with a folk guitar that he seduced the teenagers with. He wanted to be a pal with everyone and he was glad to spend the rather wealthy congregation's funds on endless bell tower and parking lot projects. In other words he knew what he was hired to do. Pastor Mays on the other hand wanted to talk about the rather grumpier parts of the religion, the part where you drew a ladder on the chalkboard between man and God and then dramatically erased the middle of the ladder. But I understood what he was trying to say about faith and not imposing your demands on God's Ways and Means. So I ended my relationship with theology but not my respect for an intellectually upright believer.

But I have also studied the Jewish apocalyptic groups as well as early Christianity in what you might call the late 2nd Temple Period. I have also become familiar with many of the pre-modern millennial groups as well as the Crusades and the motives for them. And then there's the matter of the way that Rome treated all the heretics and non-Christians once Christianity took over the Roman Empire. And then there's the matter of the born-again millennial movement waiting for the rapture to divorce them from everyone they don't like on Earth.

It is in light of all that that makes me wonder how a scholar can express what was expressed in that quote with a straight face. Christianity is not a history dominated by a love song. That particular maudlin view rejects the realities of History and the World in an overwhelming way. I have to think that this man is really suffering on the edge of a breakdown. It's too bad. Personally and professionally. His work on Buddhism has been of immense value.

Feathers wrote:Uan, could you link any of the things you have been reading/watching on Milarepa?

I was watching the documentary Yogis of Tibet and ran across this 3 parter on Milarepa. I'm not usually moved by these kind of things, and I already knew the life story of Milarepa, but for some reason, this had a profound impact on me.

Feathers wrote:Uan, could you link any of the things you have been reading/watching on Milarepa?

I was watching the documentary Yogis of Tibet and ran across this 3 parter on Milarepa. I'm not usually moved by these kind of things, and I already knew the life story of Milarepa, but for some reason, this had a profound impact on me.

Milarepa's Initial RealizationsI have understood this body of mine to be the product of ignorance, composed of flesh and blood and lit up by the perceptive power of consciousness. To those fortunate ones who long for emancipation it may be the great vessel by which they may procure Freedom. But to the unfortunates who only sin, it may be the guide to lower and miserable states of existence. This our life is the boundary mark whence one may take an upward or downward path. Our present time is a most precious time, wherein each of us must decide, in one way or other, for lasting good or lasting ill.

One who aims only at his own individual peace and happiness adopts the lower path (Hinayana), but he who devotes the merits of his love and compassion to the cause of others belongs to the higher path (Mahayana).

In meditating on the Final Goal, one has to discover the non-existence of the personal Ego, and therefore the fallacy that it exists (i.e. because everything in the universe with name and form is basically illusory in nature)

To realize the state of non-existence of the personal ego, the mind must be kept in quiescence. In that state, thoughts, ideas, and cognition cease and the mind (awareness) passes into a state of perfect tranquility so that days, months, and years may pass without the person perceiving it; thus the passage of time has to be marked for him by others.

The visions of the forms of the Deities which appear in meditation are merely signs attending the perseverance in meditation. They have no intrinsic worth or value in themselves.

All the efforts put forth during this path must be made in a spirit of compassion with the aim of dedicating the merit of one's efforts to the Universal Good. There is a need of mentally praying and wishing for blessings on others so earnestly that one's mind processes also transcend thought.

Just as the mere name of food does not satisfy the appetite of a hungry person but he must eat food, so also a man who would learn about the Voidness (i.e. Universal Awareness) must meditate so as to realize it, not just learn of its definition.

The last paragraph is very interesting. When people talk about the finger pointing towards the moon and that we shouldn't mistake the finger for the moon, what often happens is that is exactly what we are doing when we use that phrase. We know "Voidness" is the finger and not the moon. But we often think the definition of "Voidness" (or Emptiness, or no-self, or karma, or ego clinging, etc.) is the moon. But the definitions themselves are still the fingers. Understanding the definition is still just the finger pointing to the moon. The moon is still just a finger. Inherent in the language is that there is a moon or "thing" out there. But it's inside each of us. And it's not a thing or an it. As Milarepa points out, "it" is a realization and it's beyond words.

Here's a powerful excerpt of Drubwang Konchok Norbu Rinpoche talking about "it" from the film Yogis of Tibet http://youtu.be/kqSExkgZ6tw . Watching him is still "a finger pointing toward the moon" but it's a very instructive finger.

Very grateful for the offered movie-teaching. Wow! It is said that faith and devotion; the nonconceptual magic is actually unifying mind with the Master, revealing true nature.

But I am selling clevernesses now. What I actually wanted to say: thank you!